scaling with multiple databases - which approach is 'best'?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi All,

I’m looking at options for using multiple databases in a master-for-writes, slaves-for-reads config. I’ve Googled up multiple options including ActsAsReadonlyable, MagicMultiConnections, ActiveDelegate, and native MySQL. I’m looking for any real-world experience / advice on which of these (or others) are real options. Some background on my constraints…

  1. the site is customer-facing and business-critical

  2. development is done primariliy on WinXP boxes (corp standard) running local copies of MySQL. production is a clustered environment (except for a single DB box right now)

  3. we have a DBA group that controls the production DB environment

  4. all the ‘normal’ Fortune 500 organization / process stuff

Thanks in advance!

Bill

2

Simplist solution is to stick a load balancer in front of your DB servers. Select request get past to the server with least load, inserts, updates and deletes go to all of them